The Rending and the Nest by Kaethe Schwehn

Author:Kaethe Schwehn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

CHAPTER SEVEN

I couldn’t write a word in my notebook anymore without wondering whether that word might be the object growing inside me. Whether to write was to conjure. I touched my belly for clues. At night, lying perfectly still beside Rodney’s even breath, I imagined I felt movements. I thought of James and the Giant Peach, all those insects in the pit of the peach with their tiny legs, miniature motions undetectable on the surface of the fruit. I thought of reading the book with my father in our hammock one summer, a citronella candle burning beside us, the scent of beer on his breath. How when the day began to dim and the bats to snatch movement out of the air above us he’d set the book on his chest and close his eyes. Then he’d hum. Some mash-up of Beatles tunes and hymns and whatever ballad had been blaring on the radio that week. Sometimes melodies I hadn’t heard before, made up on the spot or pulled from another time. This was the closest I ever got to observing my father’s train of thought. He always chose his words so carefully, square paving stones continually leading somewhere. I loved the humming for the imperfections, for the way it all blurred together into a lullaby.

I should have begun collecting materials for a Nest for my own Baby. But I couldn’t do it. To do so felt like abandoning hope altogether.

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